"For one little cauldron, 25 bricks of tea, 70 kilos of yak butter, 3 kilos of salt," says Drakpa, stirring this recipe for 200 with a wooden spoon tall as a human. "For the biggest cauldron, we used seven times that much."

spot52 wrote:I don't know if I would like it, but how can you go wrong with butter and salt? They make everything taste better. But the tea uses the lowest quality tea leaves.

They tend to prefer rancid butter yak that's a bit sour, but surprisingly it's not as gross as it sounds. The problem isn't the taste, it's the bowlingball-in-the-stomach feeling after drinking so much fat.

I was working on seasoning my yixing pots the other day, and discovered that a lot of some nice cooked puerh essentially stewed in a pot (yixing soaking inside a big pot with the tea soup) not only smelled quite nice, but also tasted pretty good despite a good hour of simmering.

Have you had Yak Butter Tea? I've always heard people hated it, but I actually was quite fond of it. I get yak butter shipped to me on a regular basis so I can make it at home. It sure does fill you up though. Great in the winter.

Have you had Yak Butter Tea? I've always heard people hated it, but I actually was quite fond of it. I get yak butter shipped to me on a regular basis so I can make it at home. It sure does fill you up though. Great in the winter.

They collect Yak dung and dry it out. You can see it in stacks, or stuck to walls drying all over. When dried, it burns well and has no poo odor. In Wisconsin, when I was young, in particularly bad winters when we couldn't get to the woods for more firewood, we used to burn cow pies (cow poop) too. It wasn't uncommon then.

IPT wrote:They collect Yak dung and dry it out. You can see it in stacks, or stuck to walls drying all over. When dried, it burns well and has no poo odor. In Wisconsin, when I was young, in particularly bad winters when we couldn't get to the woods for more firewood, we used to burn cow pies (cow poop) too. It wasn't uncommon then.

Beats being cold, that's for sure! The pics with that article are amazing!

IPT wrote:They collect Yak dung and dry it out. You can see it in stacks, or stuck to walls drying all over. When dried, it burns well and has no poo odor. In Wisconsin, when I was young, in particularly bad winters when we couldn't get to the woods for more firewood, we used to burn cow pies (cow poop) too. It wasn't uncommon then.

It's a common (but not preferred ) technique among backpackers, too.

I saw the article in a copy of Natgeo. The article has reinforced my desire to visit Yunnan and Tibet when I am finished with my studies

Cow dung is used for fuel in India also. You often see walls covered in large rounds of drying dung, each one with a hand print in the center so that they actually make a wonderful abstract design. And the smell of the burning dung is actually very nice. Sort of like burning sweet grass if you know that smell.